Audio-video database from subacute stroke patients for dysarthric speech intelligence assessment and preliminary analysis

Early, objective, and accurate assessment and identification of dysarthria caused by neurological diseases are essential in neurorehabilitation. This could be achieved by a robust smart system. However, developing such a system requires a standard training database that is properly labelled, which unfortunately is currently lacking. The present study aimed to establish a standardized, audio-visual integrated speech database of subacute stroke patients with dysarthria, named "The Mandarin Subacute Stroke Dysarthria Multimodal (MSDM) Database", which included audio-visual data from 25 subacute stroke patients and 25 healthy participants. In addition, comprehensive subjective clinical assessment information of speech-motor function and ecological psychology of each patient was also provided. Based on this database, a pilot study was conducted to detect the significant acoustic and visual characteristics that revealed the severity of dysarthria related to subacute stroke. The present study offered a novel perspective to objectively quantify and identify the pathological differences in speech production. It can serve as a baseline for the development of an automatic intelligent system for assessing severity of dysarthria. In conclusion, the establishment and analysis of high-quality database on articulation errors associated with dysarthria will benefit clinical treatments and contribute to the realization of automatic diagnostic tools that can be implemented for clinical telehealth services.